


A heart, a star

by princesslindworm



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A heart is a heavy burden, Across The Stars, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Found Family, Happy Ending, Knight Rey, Prince Ben Solo, Prince Kylo Ren, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey of Jakku, Soulmates, Wizards, home is where the heart is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23145103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princesslindworm/pseuds/princesslindworm
Summary: After defeating the dark wizard that had been terrorizing the country of Alderaan, their hero, Rey of Jakku, joins the celebration, but there's still something she longs for...
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 10
Kudos: 51
Collections: Reylo Charity Anthology: Volume 2





	A heart, a star

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fanfic for the Reylo Charity Anthology Volumen 2! It's my first fic in AGES, a little gift for the reylos. I love you all. 
> 
> A big thank you to the wonderful Ohtze for her help!

The banquet was glorious. There was so much food it was impossible for Rey to fathom it. Her eyes kept traveling across the tables even when she was full. Music and smiles filled the large room, and the castle felt like an entire city. Colorful, joyful and alive.

People danced, celebrating the long awaited victory: the day the country of Alderaan was at last freed from the curse of the dark wizard that had poisoned it for too many terrible years.

Rey had been the one to give that to them. She had defeated him. She sat in a place of deference, next to the queen.

Courtiers had bowed to her. Artists had recited new created poems in her honor. The monarchs had offered her their deepest gratitude and chests filled with treasures. Master Luke had forged a new sword for her, beaming with sacred, ancient sun magic. And her friends had looked at her like no one ever had before, embracing her with their warmth and their smiles. 

All of it was even better than anything she could have ever hoped for. 

In the middle of the celebration, one of her dearest friends, Finn, had wanted her to dance with him, dragging her by the hand from her seat. Rey had declined. 

She didn’t know how to dance. There were no dances in Jakku. No castles, no banquets, no royalty. There was only sand and a hunger that still clung to the core of her even when she was far away. Even with the splendid food, the warm smiles and the loud claps. 

Even when she was a hero. 

She smiled, but she couldn't join the rest of them in their joy. She looked at the dancers, just standing there in her armor; it was the only thing she owned fancy enough to wear for the event. Rey loved her armour, and owed it her life, but standing there in the ballroom, she wished for dresses and ribbons in her hair. She wished to look like the rest of the court. To be one of them. Happy and full of hope for the future.

From the corner of her eye she saw the knights of Ren guarding the doors, with their beautiful and gleamy breastplates and their dark, long capes. She had dreamed of joining them once, the first time she’d seen them, with their leader, Prince Kylo, at the top of the castle stairs, as if waiting for her to join him.

But her dream felt more distant than ever today. 

Bringing peace didn’t seem enough for the Prince of Alderaan. Kylo kept looking at her as he had all the way back from the wizard’s cave, a dark look in his ever-troubled eyes. Rey couldn’t look at him for long: it made her feel like an outcast, an outsider. As if her thoughts were written on her face, as if he could read them. 

The feast kept going on an on. It would last all day and all night. The Queen and the King had declared the festivities to last for three days, at least.

 _It’s like a wedding_ , Lady Rose had said to her. Mischief sparkling in her dreamy eyes as she laughed.

Rey had smiled, the hole inside her growing bigger as she thought about those words. A wedding seemed like something from another world to her, as far as the stars in the sky. Something too far away from her. She barely allowed herself to dream of it, yet sometimes… Sometimes she dreamed. Of many things.

She sighed and excused herself from the presence of some nearby nobles, sneaking out to the grand terrace of the castle. 

It was quiet outside. The music and conversations were barely heard and the world greeted her with its peacefulness. She felt better instantly. Many years of solitude had made her a friend of the silence, despite how lonely it made its friends. 

A forest and a line of mountains surrounded the walls of the city. Rey closed her eyes and felt the chilly breeze of the late afternoon, letting it calm her heart. She saw images of the last battle floating in her memories. The sneer of the devil, her sword flying away from her own hands. Her impotence and then, _magic_ . Hope, fear, power and _something truly special._

She opened her eyes. The voice still echoing in her mind with the dark wizard’s words. 

Her body tensed, feeling another presence in the terrace.

“Here is the hero of Alderaan,” said the Prince. Every bitter word stung like the bite of a snake. He had closed the doors behind them, silencing the party completely.

“Your Highness,” she murmured, not moving. 

Kylo approached her, but stayed silent, standing just a few metres away from her. 

Rey waited for the inevitable. The moment he would tell her that after completing her quest she was not needed anymore, that she was welcome to go, to disappear; that she did not belong in this place and everyone expected her to leave. To continue being a hero in some other kingdom, far away from them. 

“I know what you are,” he said, instead. His voice was a low whisper, but she couldn’t hear anything else. Not even the rustling of the wind near her ear, ruffling her hair. “I saw you,” he said, closer this time. She felt a shiver as the sound of his boots reached her. “I saw what you did, _Rey_.” He was too close. He was never this close. He never said her name.

She felt him. The presence of him right behind her. They weren’t touching, but the Prince put his hands on the railing, caging her. The wind betrayed her when he leaned over her ear, making his dark curls touch her cheek. 

It was almost a caress and Rey had to close her eyes again, overwhelmed. She could still shut them hard and pretend she was not there. She had done it before, a thousand times, a thousand lives. She had left Jakku closing her eyes again and again. 

“Don’t you want to know how I know?” 

Rey knew he wasn’t smiling. Kylo Ren never smiled. He didn’t even smirk. But there was a smile, a wicked smile in his voice as he spoke. 

_No._ That’s what she wanted to say. Yet she couldn’t say it, because she knew how he knew. She could feel it in every fiber of her body. She couldn’t move because he was keeping her there. He was something strange and incomprehensible too. He was like her. 

She couldn’t believe it.

“I know you have it too, Rey. The magic of the dead stars.”

Her mind felt cloudy, only her name on his lips felt real. 

“I… I don’t really understand it… I’ve never…” 

She had never wanted to use it. It felt strange. She had never known another person with this exact same power. No one survived after being hit by a star. Her family hadn’t. She had never wanted to use it and it felt strange. Her magic was different from Master Luke’s magic. It didn’t come from the sun. It had come directly from the night, through the stars. It was beautiful, it was dangerous. Rey loved the sun. She wanted the sunshine, not the lonely embrace of the darkness. But there she was, just a scrap of a girl. Half a heart, half a dead star in her chest. 

There he was. Someone like her. 

She was not alone. 

“Show me.” His mouth touched her temple, and it was as if lightning had struck somewhere inside her body. She tried to speak again but no words came out.

“I know this is how you killed him. Snoke. The dark wizard… He was pathetic. Weak.” His soft lips ghosted over her skin as he spoke. “But you… You are something else.” 

Kylo was looking at her now. This prince with rooms full of people who loved him, in a castle of flowers and songs. This prince with a face like a sculpture, someone a daughter of peasants like her should spend her life worshipping; someone a knight should follow to death. 

“Aren’t you, Rey?”

Her heart had escaped her chest, and was now beating hotly in her face. How could she answer?

Kylo lifted one of his hands and made a sweeping motion. The creak of his leather gloves as he moved filled her ears, and she saw the line of trees in front of her tumbling one by one, like pieces in one of Poe’s games. Rey gasped.

“Wha-Why did you do that?!” She faced him. Anger boiling in her veins, soul aching for the destruction of the beautiful greenness in front of her.

The prince barely moved an inch, his arms still around her without touching her. He was as emotionless as always. His cold calmness was the natural opposite of the fury that shone on her face.

“Show me your power,” he said. He was looking at her mind. 

“Stop that!”

She tried to push him, but never got to touch him. In a second, her hand was up and he had slid a few meters away from her without time to react. Rey could feel the energy flowing through her veins. The rush of power. It felt good. It filled her. A power not attained through long hours of study as that of Luke’s. A magic that came from within her, somewhere deep inside. 

Something abnormal, but something hers.

She let her hand fall. Her whole her body ached, tired with the sudden use of the magic she wasn’t used to manipulate. Kylo was looking at her in awe. 

Rey didn’t know what to say again. She didn’t know what he was thinking and wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know. He looked at her with such hunger she felt the need to put distance between them again. Her back touched the cold marmol of the railing. There was no place to hide from his deep eyes. 

There was also a bright light in them, however. A sparkle. Something she had never seen there before. Hope? Yearning? She couldn’t know. It didn’t suit Kylo Ren. It was something more suited for the prince of Alderaan, standing next to his parents in the throne room, with his elegant clothes and nodding politely at his guests. Prince Ben Solo. That had been his name before he had left his home and joined the dark wizard many years ago. He had come back, drowned in guilt and regret, but he had never reclaimed his name. Still, she had never seen _him_ until now.

The prince approached her carefully—as one would approach a wild animal—but surely. His streaks were elegant and relaxed. He was not even a bit afraid of her or what she could do. He was not afraid of what she was. 

Rey gulped, and for a second both of them stood there, just a few steps away, stunned without saying anything. 

Then, the prince dropped to one knee.

“I want you to marry me.”

Rey’s heart flew, but not as a wild bird storming the skies. No, it left her as if he had torn it off and thrown it from the highest tower of the castle. It struck her then, that this proposal would have made her happy in a secret world. It had been a secret buried so deep within her own heart she’d never had thought of letting it live outside her dreams. 

It was surreal.

She frowned. 

“I can’t. My prince, I am—” His eyes burned her with his intensity, just focused on her and not her words, making her nervous as always. She took a deep breath and tried to match that fire with her own, meeting his gaze steadily. “You just want to use me. My power. I may not be royalty, but I won’t be insulted.”

Kylo rose in a second.

“Insulted?!” 

There it was, the familiar rage. Rey prefered it over his mask of calmness. She had spent most of her life fighting angry beasts: this she knew how to handle. This didn’t make him a distant fairy tale prince, but the petulant, only child of the Queen and King. An arrogant king-to-be. And she wouldn’t fight for such a king. She would **fight** him. 

“You are a lowborn nothing from Jakku. You don’t have a title. A crest. No family.” Kylo could barely control the anger in his speech. “I’m offering you a place.”

He raised his hand again and made a fist. 

The air left her lungs and she felt him. Truly felt him, inside her, dipping his long, cool fingers inside her mind. Scraping her memories, her wishes. 

“I’m giving you what you want, Rey. A place besides Queen Leia and King Han. Parents. A family. A court of people devoted to you.”

“Don’t!” She raised her hand, trying to block him and keep him out. But the magic poured from him like poison, and his words struck her chest like arrows.

“A castle, a kingdom. The love of the people.” He kept at it. “You’ll have it easily. There’s no need for you to search anymore. I can give you all you want.” 

Kylo leaned over her again. He was as tall and magnificent as his castle. His eyes were fixed on hers. 

She was sure she was going to pass out, that it was only the force of his will that kept her standing there; her body was as lifeless as a doll, but still upright. Her hands were curled into fists so strongly it hurt, and it was the pain what made her realise that it wasn’t him who was keeping her standing. It was herself. 

She was fighting him.

He could reach her. And therefore, she could reach him. 

Rey gritted her teeth and lashed out. Her magic like an invisible whip curling around his wrist, pinning him into place. Her eyes were knives cutting his mind open, mercilessly.

“Rey!”

And then she saw it. A mind as dark as the lonely nights she had spent in Jakku. A mind as sad as the thoughts that kept her awake during her nights at the castle. She saw him as he had probably seen her. She saw his deepest secrets, fears and desires. The sadness. _Ben. The loneliness. Mom? Not enough. You are the son of a long lineage of kings. Don’t worry, kid. Control yourself. Weak. What’s wrong with you, Ben? Just a boy. I’m scared. Unworthy._

Tears filled her eyes, waiting to fall. She extended her hand towards him. All magic stripped away, just her bare hand trying to reach him. 

“Ben” her voice was hoarse and fragile.

Kylo took a step back. He was slightly bent towards the ground, his head down, face covered by his dark hair. When he lifted his gaze, it scared her. It was not the angry expression of before—it was something completely raw. Eyes full of shame and anguish.

“You shouldn’t have.” 

“You did it first. You were in my mind, Ben!”

“I…”

“What’s all this? I…”

“We are connected,” he said, as he took off one of his gloves. “Connected through the stars. I… I could read them since I was a child. They spoke to me. Even when I wasn’t trying to read the sky...” She felt him shiver. “My grandfather could too. He caught one whole dead star. He wanted to gift her to my grandmother.”

“What happened?” whispered Rey.

The prince’s expression was pained.

“The star consumed him. He grew obsessed with it. It poisoned his mind. It made him powerful, but it drained him. My grandmother couldn’t recognise him anymore. He became one of the most powerful wizards in the history of our country. A legendary king. And I thought…” he paused, looking briefly away before meeting her eyes again. “I’ve never been good with sun-magic like my uncle. Not good enough. I thought a star… I thought I could control it. I was stupid. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t die, just got this,” he tilted his head slightly towards her, showcasing the scar on his face. “I only caught half of it. Not a full star.”

She gasped.

“But Ben—”

“I thought I failed. But I felt something, Rey. The stars chose me, and you.” His eyes searched hers. “I knew you were coming here. We are connected to each other. We belong together.”

She felt blood rushing to her face. Once more, Kylo raised his hand to meet hers. It was very big, and it seemed like it would engulf hers, but his touch was very delicate and his skin was warm. His palm met hers, and Rey felt the tears that had nestled in her eyes fall silently down her cheeks. There were also tears in his eyes, and something else. She felt herself wanting to drown in that, whatever it was. 

She intertwined her fingers with him.

“Can you feel it?” he asked softly, as if scared to spook her. His eyes never left hers.

Rey closed them. She couldn’t explain it. None of it.

“Yes.”

A heartbeat. The heartbeat of some strange power, old and magnificent, beating through their veins like one being. 

“Rey.”

He was close again. Too close. His forehead rested against her. She felt herself damp with sweat and sick with exhaustion, the magic wearing her out. 

Kylo took a deep breath, and she did the same. They did it again, both matching their breathing.

“You are not alone,” he said.

She opened her eyes slowly, as if she were a princess awoken from a long nightmare. 

“Neither are you.”

The prince’s face was calm, but so unusual, so different from his cold demeanor... She understood now that he was never calm, that there were storms and turmoil in his mind, covered by a paperthin mask of cold metal.

But he looked so peaceful and beautiful now she could kiss him; this strange boy who knew her mind, who held her hand. Her heart hummed.

Kylo’s lips curled a bit as his eyes studied her, trying to memorise all of her, to comprehend all of her: the hero from Jakku, the paladin of Alderaan. The knight who had defeated the monster and the evil that corrupted the land. The lonely girl who had spent her whole life in a quiet and barren desert. The girl he had spent every night thinking of since he saw her on the stairs of his palace. He had descended to meet her and now he felt himself rising to try to match her. Too good for him. This girl who everyone loved easily, who carried the hopes of the whole kingdom. A girl never touched by failure.

“Don’t” whispered Rey, reading his mind. She cupped his face and he leaned into her touch. “Ben,” she said his name softly, and his lips brushed her palm just as softly. 

“Will you stay here? With me?” he asked.

Rey’s face broke into a smile, a wide smile. Ben stood still. 

Her free hand reached for him and she kissed him. It felt like the magic. It felt good. It felt right.

“Yes,” she said, before kissing him again. This time more slowly, feeling Ben’s arms around her. He smiled too when they pulled apart, a shy, beautiful smile that made her head spin.

Inside the castle, the music was never-ending, and the laughs and songs danced across the corridors. Outside, Rey and her Prince looked at the stars. Their hands entwined and their hearts one. 

The hero from Jakku studied the bright lights that shone proudly in Alderaan’s night sky. They looked twice as beautiful as ever. 

This time, she didn’t look at them alone in the desert. This time, they felt like home. 


End file.
